Hyderabad Diary - Day two (8 Oct 2012)

 (HICC building, main venue of the conference)

The Conference begins

The 11^th Conference of Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity commenced ceremonially at Hyderabad today. A large gathering was there, may be more than 5,000 people. (Eventually this could be the largest gathering on biodiversity, as more than 14.000 participants have been pre-registered).

The host country guests included the Minister of Environment and Forests of India and the Chief Minister of Andra Pradesh.The opening session was chaired by the Union Minister of Environment and Forests of India, Jayanti Natarajan. In her impressive speech, she stressed the need of collective responsibility by all to ensure sustainable living and also said that the expenditure on biodiversity needs to be looked at as an investment.

Braulio Ferreira de Souza Dias, the Executive Secretary of CBD urged that he wants all the countries at CBD to reach the Aichi Targets. He also highlighted the need to release finances to achieve national level targets of biodiversity and it as a crucial asset of the development.

The legacy of the oriental civilisations with is related to biodiversity and its conservation was emphasized during the speeches.

I had opportunity to weak around what are the events to be held within the premises, exhibitions, side events and side events. As usual, there are a large number of side events on various themes and topics on biodiversity.

Hyderabad notes

We had the opportunity to travel by bus on 8^th. The passenger transport seems to be excellent as there were ample amount of buses on roads, but not crowded much, and leading to various places. One interesting issue was the seats reserved for ladies – 5 double seats on the right side and 2 double seats on the left side were reserved for ladies. There is a label above the seats, but was in Telingu (?) language only – girls and ladies come and stand at the seat pointing the label, a silent request. Further to this, double seat each on the left side of the bus were reserved for the “Physically Handicapped Persons” (PHP) and “Senior Citizens”. This is something we can copy Andra Pradesh!

 (see the label/ notice just above the window)

(The diary will be updated daily, but may not be properly edited. I am grateful for the Green Movement of Sri Lanka for providing the opportunity to attend this event)